Excelsior
by allokai
Summary: Strange, sinister things are going on in the continent of Lakaito. When a pokemon trainer and an unwilling shapeshifter are embroiled in a string of odd happenings, they know they must strike out together to get to the bottom of it.


Chapter One - Mahar

Oh, Mahar had no idea what to do. No idea. She had set out with no apparent purpose, but there had been a vague notion in her head that she would think of something on the way. However, nothing had come. She had gone on and on, hunted her own food, found places to hide when night fell...felt lonelier than she ever had before in her life. She wasn't doing too badly, considering, but this aimless wandering was getting her nowhere. She felt as if she had a purpose, but did not have the means to achieve it.

Bushes hung close around her, their foliage crisp and green in the dawn's first light. A few little bones lay near her paws; a rattata hadn't made it away from her. She made a face, her delicate snout wrinkling slightly in an expression of distaste. She did not like to eat rattata; she preferred pidgey or even bigger game, such as furret or linoone. Game like her parents used to catch...preferably nicely roasted, in the way a grown ninetales would.

Mahar licked delicately at her paws, large ears pricked to catch the sounds carried on the wind. She blew a thin flame down her legs, careful not to catch anything inadvertently on fire. She had done that before several times under supervision, but she had never made that mistake again after learning how to avoid it. Fire was good, fire was life and energy, but it was also destructive. Such a beautiful element...but too much of anything could cause pain.

Pain. The young vulpix had been a blissful, ignorant stranger to emotional pain before _it_ had happened. Certainly she had been bitten by prey when she had been learning to hunt, had been nipped and battered by her family as she played with them. However, she had never known the pangs of loss, the anxiety of having no one to depend upon or to love...the stress of being out on her own to fend for herself.

Her family was gone. Mahar could still remember that awful day...the day when the strange, thin, tall figures had come, breaking the serenity of their peaceful forest. They carried powerful, exotic pokemon on them, carried them somehow in tiny, magic spheres. They hurt the forest, burned parts of it, blew things up...looked for something.

They also caught some of the forest's pokemon in their red and white prisons. Mahar had hidden terrified with her siblings, lodged back deep in their den. She had cowered as she heard the sounds of battle above, of her parents – her beautiful, strong parents – trying in vain to defend their brood. Soon, however, those sounds had faded.

A poochyena had come down the burrow after that. It had been strong – abnormally so. No poochyena as young as that one was supposed to be that strong. It was unnatural. It had come creeping down into their burrow, and, naturally, they had tried to fight it. It didn't seem too affected by their tiny flames, though. One by one, it had dragged them out, caught them up by the loose skin at the back of the neck or one long, curled tail.

Mahar had been terrified. She hadn't fought the poochyena, as she had remained at the very back of the burrow. Perhaps she had carried some insane hope that she would not be noticed there, that perhaps she would escape. At any rate, strangely enough, her hope had been answered; after taking her brothers and sisters, the poochyena had not come back from her. It had not seen her crouching at the back of her burrow.

The little vulpix had emerged to a changed, quite forest, a forest that was frightened and wounded. Everything seemed to have hidden. For a long time, she had been the only one to wander about in a daze. She had hunted small game, retired back into her empty burrow at night, even been hunted. She smelled her parents, her siblings, and those humans all around her home...but there was no trace of them.

Finally, Mahar must have overcome her shock. Common sense kicked in, and instinct came along with that. Several days after the life-shattering event, she had struck out through the forest, following the scent of the humans. She had overcome her fear and journeyed on in the vain hope that she might see her family again.

Her hopes had been smitten, however. After a time of wary, frightened, careful traveling, she had come to a cleared spot in a field where the trail of the humans simply vanished. It had not gone on in either direction, nor had it somehow been masked – Mahar had checked meticulously for several miles in all directions.

Despairing, the small foxlike pokemon had remained in and around that field for days. She had even resorted to attempted to talk to the local pidgey, a task that was easier-said-than-done. All she had gotten out of them, her natural prey, were inarticulate squawking and proclamations of a 'great stir' and 'doom.' Needless to say, this had not helped her much. Eventually she had left.

Now she was here. Mahar had been 'on the road' for a long time, now...days turned into months. She had learned more or less to look after herself and hunt her own food, though she was still really too young to be looking after herself. She was a little malnourished and somewhat thin and scrawny. Her eyes held a perpetual wary, almost haunted look.

She sat here in this clean, airy forest, this normal place, sat and wondered what to do. This was not new for her; she had wondered it many times. Her constant wandering really was fruitless, she knew. Common sense told her she should have picked out a spot in one of the many fields or forests she had traveled through. She should have found a place to call her home. Mahar was a hardy, robust creature; she knew she could probably survive in such a manner on her own. She also knew, somewhere deep inside, that she would probably never see her family again.

She was foolishly sunk in her own restless thoughts by the time a telltale rustle came to her large ears. It ought to have warned her, but she didn't come out of her trance in time. When she finally reacted and jerked to her feet, bristling, body tense, there was something large standing over her.

Circular antlers crowned a thin head, his eyes at the sides as a prey animal's sometimes were. One hoof was raised slightly, as if he had not expected to see her there. He showed no fear of the much smaller animal, and Mahar knew this stantler could probably grind her into the turf if he chose to do so. Literally.

She stood her ground, though, body near to the earth, head tipped back. She had never been this close to a stantler, and she felt momentarily dizzy as she looked at the antlers. Strange sensations came into her mind, illusions and feelings and the promise of dreams... It took all her strength to look away and focus her gaze at last on the dark, liquid eyes, leaving her feeling drained.

It seemed to be an eternity as both pokemon regarded each other, the former with a sort of calm composure tinged with curiosity and the later with wariness but also the typical hint of fascination often found in younger souls. Mahar noticed a worm crawling by on a shoot of grass near her head. She was aware of the clouds passing through the sky above, and she could feel acutely the texture of the rich brown earth beneath her paws. The wind rustled the greenery around her, making the trees moan eerily. She could see it stir the stantler's short brown fur.

The hoof finally came down delicately on the forest floor. He shifted his weight in a calm manner, and he seemed to relax even more, inclining his head toward her. Mahar's ears drooped slightly, and she felt herself sag with sheer relief. The adrenalin that had previously set her small body on edge made her feel slightly dizzy.

He bent his head and sniffed the red curls crowning her head. She startled but did not run, eyes glazing slightly as she remained perfectly still. His breath smelled sweet and felt soft; she was reminded of her mother. It was a little disconcerting, and yet Mahar eventually found herself closing her eyes. She shivered a moment before relaxing once more as the stantler's breath left her.

"Little young to be out on your own." His voice was disarmingly soft as he spoke. She looked up at him, and there was something strange there. "I would say you've been on your own for a long time, now," he continued, looking down at her with those large dark eyes of his. "And I would tell you it is because of humans, no?"

Mahar got an image suddenly of those tall figures with the balls, and she cringed, somehow forgetting to question how it had gotten inside her mind. Her tails drooped, and she opened her mouth, blinking slowly. "I..." It felt strange to speak; her voice was raspy with misuse. "I...yes...they came...stole f-family...lookin' for em' now, but...los' the scent. C'nt smell 'em any longah...g-gone. Like wind ovah hills and up into sky...not 'ere, not there..." The fox paused, a little surprised she had spoken this much. It felt surprisingly good to simply speak with another living creature again instead of hunting them or being hunted by them.

The stantler blinked twice, and Mahar gained the odd feeling he knew more about her than she had told him. His insight was startling, and yet there was something completely disarming about his presence. She wanted to trust him, and she had been made wary of trusting anything by now. And yet...yet she did not fear him. She knew she should have, but she did not.

"I believe I can help you," he told her quietly. "I do think that you should come with me. I am headed toward the Tarvian Forest, at the edge of the human city of Rena. You will be able to find some answers you seek there." He was looking into her eyes all the while as he spoke, and the space around his head seemed momentarily distorted.

Mahar's head felt a little fuzzy; it was as if she couldn't think clearly. A haze clouded about her mind, and her ears drooped even more, tails sagging to brush the ground. The stantler's words suddenly seemed very important; it was as if they made too much sense to resist. Too much sense indeed. An inordinate amount of sense, to be sure, but Mahar could not find it in herself to contradict what her will told her was best.

Besides, she had been without a direction for too long, now...much too long. Any escape, any inkling of hope had to be examined thoroughly. The prospect of some sort of company, too, was a welcome one, even though a stantler helping a vulpix really was totally bizarre.

And so Mahar found herself following the strange pokemon, this stantler who could convince others with a mere look in the eyes and walk with no sound at all. She could not understand him, found herself thinking him akin to a mere illusion from time to time. However, she followed him with the loyalty and blind obedience of a hound after its master.

After all, what did she have to lose?

* * *

((Well, here I go again. This is a sort of remake of The Lakaito Chronicles, and I'm hoping I can keep it going for a little longer than that went. Reviews are always appreciated, and constructive criticism is loved. )) 


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